


sasha james and the surprisingly easily solved mystery of her creepy boss at the magnus institute, london

by ceruleancats



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Archivist!Sasha, Comedy, Gen, Humor, jumping on the archivist!sasha bandwagon for the vine, lbr elias and peter and their divorces are such a good meme, lonelyeyes is implied but only as a joke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23534731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleancats/pseuds/ceruleancats
Summary: Weird things have been happening at the Magnus Institute, including the verbalization of a truly disturbing number of eye puns. Head Archivist Sasha James is determined to get to the bottom of it.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 111





	sasha james and the surprisingly easily solved mystery of her creepy boss at the magnus institute, london

**Author's Note:**

> yes, i am indeed jumping eagerly upon this bandwagon. a lesser writer might use this concept to explore the nuanced consequences of Sasha being the Archivist. however, i am here for the jokes and the jokes alone. jonny sims you may be writing a horror podcast but you have no power here. if you enjoyed this at all, or you are also living in terror of ANOTHER s5 episode coming out this week, please let me know :))

There was something fishy going on in the Archives, and Sasha was going to get to the bottom of it if it killed her. Well, hopefully it wouldn’t kill her, but with the looming threat of Prentiss and everything, it was definitely a possibility. She had compiled a list of all the weird and vaguely suspicious things that had happened in the past couple months since right before she’d become Head Archivist, and the evidence of _something_ was damning. 

1\. Gertrude Robinson’s death “in the line of duty.” The line of duty? For a Head Archivist? What did that even mean? Had a really bad paper cut done her in? Buried under an avalanche of improperly organized statements? Also, Elias saying “don’t worry about it too much” was not the most reassuring thing to hear when you were taking over the position that someone else had apparently died because of. And that was also somewhat of a suspicious thing to say in general. When had “don’t worry about it” ever ended well for literally anyone?

2\. Sasha’s promotion. Not to sell herself short, but she really did not have the necessary experience or educational qualifications for the position of Head Archivist. According to Elias, she’d been Gertrude’s first choice for a successor, even though she could count on less than one hand the number of times she’d ever interacted with the woman. Like, what was up with that? That was weird, right?

3\. The pervasive, spine-tingling feeling of being watched that prickled at the back of Sasha’s neck literally every time she set foot in the Archives. She might have written it off as paranoia or something, but she was the least paranoid person she knew, plus she could swear she’d had the same feeling in Artefact Storage every time she walked past that one haunted camera. It was definitely real, and definitely not a coincidence.

4\. Elias’s weirdly theatrical idioms, expressions, and puns involving eyes. Why were there so many of them.

So Sasha thought she had a pretty good case for her—something, as it were, enough to at least bring it up with her assistants when they went to have lunch at the nearby cafe to see if maybe they had any magical insights. 

“Sasha,” said Tim, after she had finished laying out her four point theory for them all, “I know you’re very competent and smart and all, but are you 100% sure you haven’t cracked under the stress of having a worm woman stalking the Archives?”

Sasha narrowed her eyes at him, but before she could defend herself, Jon jumped in. “I wouldn’t exactly word it like that,” he said, rolling his eyes at Tim, “but you have been under a lot of pressure lately, and it’s perfectly reasonable to become a bit paranoid and, you know, come up with four point theories as to why the Archives are haunted and Elias is evil eyeball monster. I mean, Tim makes puns about things all the time, and yes, he’s a monster, but it’s not because of that.”

“Hey!” Tim yelped in mock offense, shoving Jon playfully. Jon attempted to hide his smirk and failed roundly.

“If it helps, I definitely see what you’re saying,” Martin piped up. “That being watched feeling, I get it sometimes, too. And, I don’t want to be rude, but Elias is a bit creepy…”

“Martin, just because he told you that you couldn’t keep that dog in the Archives doesn’t make him _creepy_ ,” said Jon.

Martin, predictably, blushed (as he did at any mention of that particular incident). “That’s not why,” he mumbled, looking down at the table.

“ _Any_ way,” said Sasha, in a possibly vain attempt to get the conversation back on track, “if you lot don’t believe me, I guess I’ll just have to prove it to you. Tonight. I’ll hack into Elias’s computer and see if I can find anything juicy.”

“Sasha!” cried Jon and Martin simultaneously, scandalized for likely very different reasons. 

“Oh, hell yeah,” said Tim cheerfully, “I love when you do the whole Hackerman thing.”

“It’ll just be a little peek! And if there’s nothing incriminating there, I promise I’ll drop it,” she said, blinking at her assistants innocently.

“This is entirely inappropriate,” Jon muttered under his breath, but then said, “Just...try not to get caught, please? I’d really rather not have to deal with a new boss when you get fired.”

“Your lack of faith wounds me,” Sasha said, pressing a hand over her heart dramatically. “I’ll be fine, and I’ll finally have proof for all you naysayers.”

Martin buried his head in his hands, but Jon gave her a solemn nod and Tim gave her a high five. Two out of three wasn’t bad.

— 

It was surprisingly easy to break into the Institute and Elias’s office after hours. All she’d needed was a bobby pin and knowledge of where the cameras were, both of which she was conveniently already in possession of. 

And Elias’s computer was an even bigger joke. His password was literally “eleyeas.” The complete lack of creativity was stunning, and just strengthened her eye puns = evil theory. Which was immediately, irrevocably proven upon an initial examination of his desktop and discovery of a folder labeled, verbatim, “Evil Eye Plans.”

Sasha had to sit back for a couple seconds to digest that. Well, it was sure something. Vindication? She clicked it open and started looking at the files inside. One was a spreadsheet called “Fears the Archivist Has Been Marked By,” which sounded suitably ominous. Sasha opened it. There was a column of “Fears” on the left side, with an X next to one of them named “The Spiral.” Okay…..then. She snapped a quick picture of the spreadsheet with her phone and kept looking at the rest of the Evil Plan folder.

The next document that caught her eye was one labeled “Traumatic Blackmail Material for Archives Staff.” Sasha very carefully did _not_ open it, and clicked on the next one called “Eye Puns,” which was filled with exactly what was advertised. Wow, they were somehow even worse written out than spoken aloud. 

The final document in the folder was simply called “Divorce Count,” and was almost completely blank save for a small row of tally marks. Seven, to be precise. Sasha had not even been aware that Elias had been married once, let alone seven times. Also, Sasha didn’t even want to know why his “divorce count” qualified as an evil plan. 

Well, regardless, she’d seen enough. She took a quick picture of the folder itself with its incriminating name in full view before exiting out of everything and logging back off the computer. Goddamn if Sasha knew what the next move was now that _this_ had been revealed, but there was at least one upside, which was that her assistants were definitely going to flip their shit.

— 

A few miles away, Elias Bouchard sat bolt upright in bed and Saw that his computer had been hacked and his Evil Eye Plans revealed. 

“God fucking damn it, why the hell didn’t I make Jon the Archivist?” he snarled furiously to the empty air in his bedroom. “I hate extremely competent women, and also computers.”

“Me too, babe,” said the empty air.

“Fuck off, Peter, you know we’re divorced right now,” Elias snapped, grabbing the tacky eye-shaped lamp off his nightstand and throwing it in the general direction of the voice.

“Ouch!” said the air. “Fine, good luck dealing with whatever has made you furious this time. See, this is why I don’t interact with people. Never ends well.”

Elias ignored the air, screamed silently into his pillow, and resolved to smash every computer in the Institute as soon as he got into work in the morning.


End file.
